To keep up with the ever-growing mass of information in the world and decreasing amounts of time to digest it, there are many materials designed to help people read books as quickly as possible. While any tactics that help us cope with the exponentially growing number of theories, data and recommendations flooding into our lives are welcome, the question is whether reading faster and faster is actually the best way to achieve learning goals. Is skimming ten books better than carefully reading one? This article discusses slow reading and argues that a combination of different types of reading approaches is a useful way to chart a path through information in a way that leads to a balanced achievement of multiple learning objectives.

Learning in the Information Age

One of the great defining characteristics of the global economy is its fluidity. This fluidity includes rapid changes in growth rates, the rise and fall of sectors, the blurring of lines between business areas, responses to new technology, the disappearance of many traditional barriers to competition and the absorption of unexpected and at times highly damaging risks. This volatile economic backdrop has had, not surprisingly, a massive impact on labor markets and has contributed to the creation and destruction of many jobs, unprecedented remote work opportunities, the genesis of entire new work approaches and roles and the redefinition of many career paths.

Information Age economic dynamism has had a large impact on workplace opportunities and risks.

Working in this dynamic labor environment poses great opportunities as well as risks. To remain competitive in an increasingly borderless work world, there are great incentives for people to continually learn new things and improve their ability to carry out their jobs in the face of new market opportunities, shifting workplace expectations and multi-directional competitive threats.

A key learning requirement of the often structurally amorphous Information Age workplace is learning different things at the same time. While the learning requirements of no two jobs are exactly the same, some common Information Age learning objectives are:

• remaining aware of information that impacts our job and incorporating that information into our work
• learning new ways of working, including work processes and procedures, working from different locations at often great distances from colleagues and adopting new technologies
• learning new ways of interacting with people inside and outside the work organization
• learning new ways of balancing the often unpredictable demands of work with personal growth objectives.

A key learning requirement of the often structurally amorphous Information Age workplace is learning many different things at the same time.

While there are many ways to advance down these learning pathways, one of the most common is through reading. Reading remains one of the best ways to access and internalize different data, ways of thinking and concrete steps to put ideas into practice.

The role of reading in Information Age learning models, however, presents several challenges. The first one is that the number of materials to read is increasing at an ever-accelerating rate. According to one study, millions of new books alone are produced each year (this figure would be far higher if other types of reading materials were included), far more than could be read by a person in a single lifetime. Making this even more challenging, the demands of modern work life often create a learning paradox: the more that information increases, the less time we have to read it.

The Information Age has created a learning paradox: the more that information increases, the less time we have to read it.

The Rise of Hyper Reading

Not surprisingly, the desire to not be left behind the train of the ever-expanding number of books and other learning materials has led people to the conclusion that the only way to keep up is by dramatically shortening reading times. Due to the simple fact that time available for reading is finite, this has caused many people to speed read, skim books, scan books, read book summaries and take other steps that are all designed to allow people to cram as much information as possible into the shortest amount of time.

While speed reading of course is not new, and the Eveyln Wood speed reading courses were popular more than 60 years ago, the amount of people who have to resort to reading shortcuts to get through the materials that they need to read has, judging by the number of speedreading apps, videos and other rapid reading aids that are in the market, has, without doubt, increased over time.

While a public ready, willing and able to tear through mountains of printed matter has no doubt had a positive impact on the publishing industry, what is the end learning result of reading so many books faster and faster? Since any learning approach typically involves an investment of scarce time, a rational exercise for people on the path of knowledge acquisition is to compare what is put into a learning approach and what is obtained. While speed reading expertise may give us the comforting ability to point to a large number of digested books on our bookshelf, have we extracted what we need from the books to really meet our learning objectives? If we have extracted it, will we retain enough of it to make a lasting positive impact on our work? To consider the value of rapid reading as an Information Age learning approach, we have to compare fast reading to another learning method: slow learning.

Slow Reading

Slow reading, a learning method which, as the name suggests, involves significantly reducing speed, is not new. For significant parts of history, it was the norm to read books out loud, which forced people to read more slowly. Interest in slow reading has grown over recent decades as different types of slow movements that emphasize the process of an activity, such as slow eating, have become more popular.

The following are some key ideas of slow reading, applied to business.

Information Reception. The first step in slow reading is to read slow enough so that you can fully absorb what the author is saying. The challenge here is to avoid the tendency of connecting parts of what the author is saying with our own ideas but rather simply focus on comprehension. In addition to slowing down the pace of reading, this can involve reading a phrase, putting the book down, and thinking about it until it really sinks in.

Critical Dialogue. The second step of the slow reading process is to begin a dialogue with the author. This does not mean an actual physical dialogue but an imaginary dialogue. In this phase of the process, we critically examine the author’s thinking and conclusions. This may involve questioning the relationship between facts the author cites and the conclusions the author reaches, considering the logical flow of the author’s argument and thinking about whether the author’s conclusions are limited to a specific situation or have wider significance.

Idea Incorporation. The third step of the slow reading process is through positive or negative incorporation. Positive incorporation means taking the author’s ideas or a portion of them and actually incorporating them into our daily work. This could involve adopting a new perspective or a practical work recommendation. Negative incorporation is where a disagreement with the author’s views leads you to strengthen your belief in an opposite perspective. In this we are using the author’s analysis to sharpen our own views.

Style Incorporation. The fourth step of the slow reading process is to incorporate not what the author says but how the author says it. It is no secret that, in the world of business, how we present things is as important, and at times more important, that what we are actually saying. Many authors of good books are masters of style, argument flow and clarity and these are skills that can be studied and incorporated into how we present ideas to other people.

Reading Approaches and Learning Objectives

The existence of seemingly diametrically opposed learning approaches raises the question: what is the best approach for meeting learning objectives as efficiently as possible? The short answer is that both fast reading and slow reading have advantages.

Fast reading has the advantage of allowing readers to quickly access information. This of course is useful when a specific piece of data, such as the meaning of a word in a dictionary, is more immediately relevant than a work as a whole. More broadly, fast reading can expose readers to a wide range of authors, perspectives and case studies, which greatly facilitates the highly useful skill of lateral thinking. Even if we have not carefully read two separate books on agricultural production and artificial intelligence, our awareness of these concepts may lead us to think about the potential applicability of artificial intelligence when we consider a new agricultural project. If we had only read the book on agricultural investment, even very carefully, the applicability of artificial intelligence may not have occurred to us.

On the other hand, slow reading arguably allows for a fuller retention of the material read, which increases the likelihood that it will lead to lasting changes in the workplace or even in our lives. Further, while slow reading may not have the breadth of fast reading, there is of course no reason why a combination of approaches cannot be adopted, quickly reading some types of books and more slowly reading others. Apart from developing breadth as well as depth of knowledge, the mix of different learning methods will itself help develop mental agility and help lead to tailor-made learning strategies most effective for a person’s individual learning goals.

Conclusion

The Information Age has created many workplace opportunities and challenges. In this highly dynamic environment, the learning method we use has important significance for what and how effectively we learn. While the rapid pace of modern life is pulling people to read faster and faster, slow reading has an important place in an overall learning strategy.

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